At the End of the Tunnel

Princess Twilight Sparkle, or just Twilight, as she insisted, led me through town toward some destination. With her by my side, the other horses, who I had begun to assume were this town's actual citizens, began to come out and go about their business again, content in their knowledge that if Twilight said I was OK, then I was OK. Eventually, we reached a rather large oak tree, which had a door and windows. Obviously someone had retrofitted it to make it a building. Twilight wasn't hesitant to explain that it was actually a library and her home.

As we were about to head inside, I noticed Twilight's horn glow a shade of purple not unlike her coat color. Soon the door to the tree was glowing the same color, and it opened soon thereafter. I kept silent for the time being, confident that if Twilight was going to play '20 Questions' with me, that I could get a few of my own answered in due time. I ducked my head in through the doorway, which led to a open room, fortunately with a much higher ceiling, lined from top to bottom, all the way around, with bookcases. I hadn't seen so many books in one place since college.

"Spike," Twilight called once we were comfortably inside, "will you come down here please."

I could hear many quick footsteps coming from the upper floor of the tree-house and making their way down the stairs. I turned to look at who was making the sounds and had to do another double-take. On the stairs stood a short, bipedal creature, mostly purple except for his belly and the spines going down his back, which were green. He seemed very reptilian in appearance, with short claws and reasonably sharp teeth. His tail was made of the same material as his body, coming to a point.

"Hey Twilight, what did you, sweet Celestia, what is that," the little reptile had spotted me and freaked out, cowering on the far side of the stairs, holding his tail in his hands.

"It's OK Spike, this is a human, he's not going to hurt you." Spike nervously continued making his way down the stairs. Twilight pointed her hoof in one direction, and Spike went there, soon returning with multiple sheets of parchment paper, fine quills, and ink pots. He set them all on a table in front of Twilight, and she quickly picked up one of the quills with the same glowing thing she had used on the door. I sat myself on the floor, figuring that would be the most comfortable position to be in. "Now," she continued once everything was in order, "I'm going to ask you a series of questions, just on basic things. I'll be taking down copious notes, Princess Celestia will want to hear about you. OK first...oh, I almost forgot, you never told me your name."

I sighed, trying to be calm, "You can call me whatever you want."

"Well that doesn't make any sense," Twilight responded, "you certainly have a name, right? What did the other humans call you?"

"It doesn't matter what humans called me. I'm not around humans anymore, now am I? Besides, I've noticed that you ponies have very...interesting naming practices. My real name would sound strange and foreign to them. Call me whatever you want to call me." I let my eyes rise back to Twilight, who still wore a look of sheer confusion.

"OK then," the pony was now in thought as she considered a potential name, "Would you mind if I called you 'Guy'?"

"Not in the slightest, princess."

"OK, now that that's settled, the real questions can begin. When we found you, you said you didn't know where you were. So, how did you get here?"

I hesitated before answering, maybe because I didn't want to talk about it, or maybe because I thought it might not be the best topic to start the conversation with. "I was trying to kill myself," I finally said after a sigh. I could see Twilight's eyes react, as if she found this very intriguing, "I jumped off a bridge into the ocean, but instead of hitting the water, I somehow ended up in a field outside town."

"Why were you trying to die," Twilight asked in a genuinely curious tone of voice.

"I'd rather not talk about it," I closed my eyes and laid all the way down, acting as if this was a trip to my therapist, "I know that's not what you want, but I'm entitled to keeping personal things to myself."

"I completely understand," she replied, but as she was about to ask the next question, something stopped her, "But, if you wanted to do that, you must not have been happy. Why weren't you happy?"

"A person who understands doesn't continue with a question like that," I muttered, slightly annoyed, "You want to know about humans and about my world, that's fine by me. You want to know about me and my feelings, you'll have to earn it."

"OK then," Twilight sighed, a noticeable inflection of sadness in her voice, "Just one little question, and then I'll drop the subject. If I could figure out a way, would you want to go back to your world?" This question actually surprised me, as I hadn't considered the possibility until now. I sat up and looked Twilight straight in the eyes.

"No."

True to her word, Twilight dropped the subject. We went on for literally hours, her asking questions, and me answering them the best I knew how. She asked about laws, politics, language, arts, and sciences. She asked about how people acted, how people dressed, how people spent money, and how people made money. Eventually, I began to wear out. I hadn't eaten anything that day, and it didn't seem like there was an end to the questions.

"I believe it is time for dinner," Twilight finally announced, much to my relief, "I'll have Spike prepare some..." She stopped completely, even stopped moving. "Silly me, I never asked you anything about what humans eat."

"We're omnivores," I said flatly, she nodded as a sign that she knew what the word meant, "But, as I suppose all you eat here is plant-life, then I guess I'm lucky that I do like salad." Twilight unfroze herself and smiled a knowing little smile.

"I think our diet consists of a little more than you think it does."

Dinner went by fairly quickly. Spike, who I learned was a baby dragon, which scared me a little at first, but he seemed pleasant enough, prepared me a nice little mixed salad, while Twilight consumed what I believe were daisies between two pieces of wheat bread. Spike had also made some herbal tea, which he said he got from someone named 'Fluttershy'. Twilight, seeing my confusion at the name, ensured me that she would introduce me to the ponies in town in the next day or two.

"Now that dinner's wrapped up," my hostess said, returning to her original table, "I think it's only fair that I tell you a little about where you are now." I returned to my seated position on the floor and listened patiently as Twilight went on about the differences between alicorns, unicorns, pegasi, and Earth ponies, the reigning sovereigns, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, some geography, some general history, some personal history, and other general information. While fascinating, I had to admit that it was also putting me to sleep, as Twilight had this way of speaking very reminiscent of a college professor. "Any questions," she asked, finally finishing her lecture.

"Just one," I yawned, looking out the front window to the already-risen Moon, "where am I going to sleep?"

"I have a spare bed," the princess smiled, "though it was built for a pony, so it may be a bit short." I gave a little shrug, it didn't matter much to me, as long as I would be able to sleep, it had been a long day.

We went up to the second floor, where the beds were. Spike laid down in his basket, much like a dog would. Twilight magically lifted her covers back and got into bed. I had to crawl over to the bed, the ceiling now being too low for me to stand. The bed, at least length-wise, was very short. I had noticed that Twilight stood about three feet at the shoulder, while I was all of six feet. I decided to sleep on top of the covers, angling myself so that one foot ended up on the ground, but most of me was still on the bed. It did take me awhile to finally fall asleep, but once I did, it was quite restful.